


[yours]

by exactly13percent



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Brief/Minor Physical Fight, Character Study, Eden's Twilight, Frustration, Internal Conflict, M/M, POV Andrew Minyard, Post-Canon, Protective Andrew Minyard, Undressing, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 22:41:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18157982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exactly13percent/pseuds/exactly13percent
Summary: Andrew remembers everything except how to let this happen. It seemed so easy at the beginning.There are things you can't forget, no matter how good or bad your memory is. Maybe that's what he is starting to remember, and maybe that is what he is fighting.





	[yours]

**Author's Note:**

> Yours - SG Lewis  
> [Art by BloodyDamnit](https://bloodydamnit.tumblr.com/post/183546975849/time-doesnt-matter-here-or-anywhere)

_‘Cause all that I want is a piece now of you love, hold us_

There’s a song thrumming in his veins, pulse, _in_ and _out_ and constant heartbeat. The lights strobe, a beast blinking its lantern eyes and painting the world red. It smells like smoke. Like something expensive and well-worn; leather car upholstery and too much time to waste.

It’s hard to see the dance floor from this far up, but Andrew could find Neil blindfolded from miles away. He could follow the threads of _broken_ and _rearranged_ , trace the names and colored contacts and half-truths. He could follow the sound of a heartbeat thumping a little too fast, running or breathless, lips parted on a sigh.

It’s summer.

It’s sticky and hot outside, but it’s hard to really care; especially when Eden’s is always like this. Like bodies beside bodies, a crush and closeness. Andrew never liked the proximity, but he could handle it for the sake of bittersweet liquor on his tongue. For the sake of a drifting haze.

He does not want the haze, these days. At least, not the same kind.

The best thing about this seat—the table Andrew is at, with his drink and the red-violet glow—is how he can see Neil. All he has to do is look down; down, to the mass of people on the dance floor and the flash of lights against sequins and diamonds and white teeth. The filter-rich, saturated crowd of people with their outstretched limbs and swaying bodies.

Neil is down there. He only started braving the dance floor two months into summer; two months, so it’s almost over, but Andrew doesn’t care. Time doesn’t matter here, or anywhere. Not really. Not when Neil dances, the same fire that radiates on the court turning into something softer. Dizzier. A glow.

 _That’s the glow,_ Nicky said, the first time they went out and Neil ventured into the crowd. _That’s pure sexy._ It had taken Neil a while to relax; to test the way his space shrank to almost nothing, people here and there, a complex knot of swaying arms and sliding legs.

Andrew had almost slapped his cousin’s head for that. Nicky was lucky he had been too far up to reach as he stood on the stairs to the upper lounge.

Neil attracts attention. Some days, Andrew still cannot comprehend how Neil thought he could get away with being _nobody_ and _nothing_ , but then he remembers the terrible brown contacts and the way Neil never opened his mouth, at first. The way he held back.

Andrew thinks he still would have noticed. How could anyone miss it, anyway—the spark in that gaze, the languid curve of muscle and unconscious grace to every movement?

Sometimes Andrew hates how much he looks at Neil.

People shuffle on the dance floor. The song thuds deeper, bass resonant, and Andrew curls his fingers around his glass. He shoots back every drop, contradictory sugar and burn, the heat dripping down his throat.

Whatever was a shuffle has become a shove. Andrew tenses subconsciously; he slides the glass down, attuned to every movement, and he automatically looks for his people ( _his_ ).

There is Aaron, further away and unaware, more invested in Katelyn than anyone or anything else. Then there is Kevin, somewhere else, focused on Jeremy and Jean.

Neil.

Andrew finds Neil at the edge of the crowd, startled, someone at his arm.

Andrew moves before he makes the conscious decision to.

The stairs disappear one after another; they are not important. What matters is the man with his hand on Neil’s arm and the distracted haze to Neil’s eyes, because he was dancing, and he is supposed to be safe when he dances.

The guy is maybe nine inches taller than Neil. He might not be threatening; Andrew doesn’t care. All he knows is this stranger has a hand on Neil’s arm and he is leaning in _too close_.

Neil glances away from the man, perhaps sensing—or maybe he notices movement; the parting of the crowd. Whatever the reason, he sees Andrew, and he has that stupid look in his eyes. The look he gets when Andrew stretches after practice, or when they’re at the house in Columbia and Neil makes breakfast in the morning and has Andrew try the eggs.

It’s this _want_ that he is not supposed to have, that Andrew is not supposed to enjoy, that shouldn’t exist in the first place. It’s this look that makes Andrew even angrier that this stranger has interrupted Neil. Interrupted _their_ night.

They should be finding a corner of the club by now, and Neil should be unraveling under Andrew’s fingertips ( _his_ ).

Neil opens his mouth. His lips part around a sound, perhaps a name. Whatever it is, Andrew doesn’t have time to find out. He instead points at the stranger warningly.

He gives a warning because Roland once insisted it was necessary. _Not in this bar, Andrew. You hear me?_ Andrew heard, of course, because he does this now—postures in a way he never would, because if they were anywhere else, Andrew wouldn’t bother to warn. He would _act._ Use his knives ( _his_ ) and ensure that this stranger learned his mistake.

“You have one second to move,” Andrew says. He speaks low enough for the man to lean in, but he raises his voice over the hum of music and other people. “Now.”

The man frowns. Either he is stupid or drunk; it doesn’t matter. Andrew reaches out and grabs a fistful of his shirt.

Somewhere in the distance, Roland flips a bottle in the air. It sparkles brightly in Andrew’s periphery, neon-pink-red lights behind it making the liquid gleam. The photo-flash spark of the bottle glints at the same time Andrew’s knife does.

Perhaps the man is not drunk. He blocks Andrew with a heavy arm; the blade glances away, as well as the hand that holds it, a mistake that won’t be made again. Andrew is already prepared for a second strike. Yet—

—yet, instead of reacting or backing away, the man _pulls_ Neil by his shirt, ripping fabric like a crackle of lightning, and throws Neil in the way. Throws _Neil_ between himself and Andrew, and Neil stumbles a little, clearly unsteady, askew from being handled at a time and in a place where he shouldn’t be.

Andrew _almost_ struck out a second time. He almost did, and the _almost_ is acid in his throat while the stranger tumbles backward, dragged by two security guards that _should have fucking been there,_ and Andrew can only see the strobing red filling his vision while the music chants at him to follow the guards out.

They would stand back and watch, if he took this to the sidewalk.

Neil breathes. He exhales, a shocked little gasp of breath, and Andrew can’t hear it, but he can feel it. It echoes in his body like an earthquake, shaking him. The red light changes, warmer; Andrew can see the soft flyaway hair on Neil’s head glowing. The copper hue brings Andrew back, memory urging him to touch. Telling him that he would know what it felt like, if he were to reach out. Ensure that Neil is still there.

“That was dramatic,” Neil says, but his blue eyes are bright, and he evaluates Andrew keenly.

Andrew looks. Lifts his hand and stops short, the acid back in his throat. “Your shirt is torn.”

He can see the wispy lines and raised shapes on Neil’s chest. The secret patterns only Andrew knows. Those spots he has touched in passing, a hand on his wrist that should be broken but is somehow right instead. Places Andrew has examined in earnest, heavy sheets protecting against a cold room and Neil’s breath feathery on his neck.

Even if Andrew didn’t have a perfect memory, he thinks he could still remember them all. Remember the gunshot wound, the old iron scar stretched from age, the cleaver marks and the knife scars and the uneven circles from a dashboard lighter. He could remember the path Neil took, from a dark basement to the court, a stupid junkie with only his life left and he _still_ managed to give it away every chance he had.

“Andrew.” Neil says it as if he’s said it a million times, and he has, just not now. Or maybe he did. His hand hovers over Andrew’s wrist, which is curiously close to Neil’s chest, but not quite touching, yet. He looks down at his shirt. “It’s fine. I’ll pay you back for it.”

Andrew’s mouth twists. He thinks Neil might be trying to be lighthearted. Or maybe not. He is stupid, after all. “I don’t need your money. And it’s not _fine_.”

There’s a little flicker of recognition in Neil’s face. Like he recognizes a misstep and is filing it away.

Andrew hates that. He hates how Neil takes things—little things, stupid things—and keeps them. As if Neil is the one with the perfect memory. Neil _remembers_ these things, or at least tries to, and uses them. Even now he seems to be making an event of this, which is not an event at all, and is just a stupid interaction on a night that should have been just for them.

“It doesn’t matter,” Neil says.

He says it, and that is what makes Andrew so fucking angry. He turns on his heel and weaves his way toward Kevin, who is very distracted but nowhere near drunk, probably because Jean and Jeremy are around.

Kevin blinks in surprise, his mouth twisting in annoyance until his glance skips over Neil. His double-take is nearly comical. “Neil? What—”

“We are leaving,” Andrew says shortly. He does not explain, but he thinks Kevin is smart enough to recognize that it is not a plural. Not one that extends to him, at least. “One hour, at least. Do not drive. I will have Roland lock you in the back.”

“I know,” Kevin says. It used to be different, this exchange of theirs; now, he only agrees in passing. His gaze is on Neil. “Are you—”

“He says it doesn’t matter,” Andrew says, mocking, because he has no time to indulge Kevin and he doesn’t _want_ to. He doesn’t, and Neil keeps telling him _when you want something, tell me,_ and Andrew is doing that, now.

Andrew is already moving when Neil leans close. He can hear when Neil tells Kevin, “I’m not hurt. I’ll see you at home.”

Kevin might answer; Andrew doesn’t know. He forces himself onward and toward Aaron, who is watching his approach. Katelyn is with him, too. They are at the staircase, as if they were going to find Andrew but realized he was already gone.

“I saw.” Aaron doesn’t offer commentary. For that, at least, Andrew should be distantly grateful. He isn’t concerned with gratitude now.

“We are leaving. Keep an eye on Nicky. I told Kevin one hour.”

“One hour? You—”

Andrew cuts him off with a sharp wave. He has already worn his patience and control thin talking to Kevin. He is now a taut thread, strummed and warning, almost too low to hear. He walks out the door and doesn’t think to look back. Perhaps it is confidence. Something else.

The sound of the bass follows him out the door. It thrums like a reminder—Neil’s heartbeat against his palm; heavy words, an elbow connecting with his cheek and just missing his eye. Pounding feet and screaming and keys left on the pavement.

Neil takes the passenger’s seat quietly. He apparently trusts that Andrew can drive so far; Andrew does not know whether that is a stupid choice or not. He only knows that he wraps his hands around the steering wheel and breaths in the expensive interior as he guns it, peels away silently, intent on what is ahead.

_What is ahead?_

He’s never had a clue. He would be lying if he said he did. Andrew made all the deals he could and went back on one, but he could never anticipate Neil. Never.

The choice was never his to make ( _his_ ).

The house is dark. Andrew is still burning as he comes through the front door, as if his entire body is whiskey; as if the honeyed buzz that lingers from what he thought the night would be is underlaid by something bitter and harsh. An unwelcome reminder that the sweetness is just a film, and what is beneath will hit him all the harder for it.

Liquor before beer is a myth, and Andrew knows that better than anyone. It doesn’t matter what order you take your medicine. It will knock you on your ass all the same.

“Andrew.” Neil is quiet. Quiet, but not timid; he’s never timid. That’s been one of his virtues. One of his annoying flaws. Neil couldn’t shut the fuck up to save his life. “Why can’t you look at me?”

The question is so bizarre that Andrew whips around without thinking. He stares at Neil in disbelief; he _cannot_ believe that Neil doesn’t know. Neil has looked _back_ so many times he can’t not know that Andrew is _always_ looking.

Of course, Neil’s curved smile says he knows exactly how much Andrew looks, and he also knew Andrew would turn around. He asked a stupid question for a stupid response, and Andrew gave it to him.

A little fire trickles into Andrew’s blood. That’s the alcohol poisoning, he tells himself. “What did he say? Why was he bothering you?”

“I don’t know.” Neil returns Andrew’s unimpressed look with a shrug. “I don’t. He was trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t hear him. It’s loud down there.”

“So, you don’t even know if he was dangerous.”

“He wasn’t.”

“You just said you couldn’t hear him.”

Neil laces his hands behind his body. Leans back against the door, as if they are not arguing with keys in hand, Neil’s shirt still fucked and Andrew with his jacket still on. “This isn’t about him.”

“Oh?” _I know, I know, I know._ Andrew does not want Neil’s care, now. _Lie. Liar. Lies._

“People have done this. Before.” Neil doesn’t move. He tilts his head a little to the side; it only reminds Andrew of what they should have been doing. Of burying his nose against Neil’s skin to find his favorite cologne ( _his_ ), given as another gift Neil was bewildered by but used all the goddamn time.

“Before doesn’t matter. You know that.” Andrew uncurls his hands. Directs them toward his jacket instead, to focus on something other than the itch beneath his skin. The itch that reminds him that he knew this would happen, this eventuality of being exposed, but he decided it would happen another time. He did not plan that time to be like this. To be now.

Neil fingers the torn edge of his shirt. “I don’t mind. You know that, right?”

“Don’t mind,” Andrew repeats. His mouth moves without him; it is a nasty habit that Neil has, and he wonders if it is contagious. He might consider stepping away from Neil permanently, if so. _That is a lie, too._ “I _don’t mind_ Matt.”

“Which is a lot, for you,” Neil says drily, eyebrows raised, but he concedes the point and tries again. His fingers hover at a scar on his side. “You’ve seen them. Felt them. I never said no.”

“You didn’t say yes to anyone else.”

Andrew can see the recognition on Neil’s face. The click that is almost audible as he puts one and one together. It is infuriating to watch Neil think, his revelation loud, _you thought he made me be seen when I didn’t want to._

Neil inches away from the door. His hands are still behind his back, fingers knotted together, and his shoulders are tense. “No one else pays attention. Not like you. It didn’t matter. They—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Andrew spits. He has heard enough of this, a pseudo- _I’m fine_ from Neil, over something so small but so fucking frustratingly big. He is reaching for his armbands before he can think again.

Neil’s lips part; there is dismay in his eyes and some dark corner of Andrew’s mind warms in triumph. He is incensed by that spark of apprehension. The frustrated hopelessness.

It is not a desire to hurt someone else. It’s the recognition of the pit Andrew feels when Neil looks at him this way. The echo of his own response, buried deep and nearly unreachable. The _feeling_ he can’t really reach until this, the worst of disappointments.

He is disappointing Neil. He is breaking every glass, and Andrew needs the shards to cut him and remind him he can bleed.

The black bands skid across the floor. Neil rocks on his feet as if he is going to take them up, and Andrew notices he hasn’t looked yet. He mocks, and the words taste bitter in his mouth. “Why can’t you look at me, Neil?”

Neil picks up the bands patiently. Skirts Andrew toward the nearby bedroom, not bothering with the light on his way in. He pauses after he sets the bands on the bed, then turns back to lean against the doorframe and find Andrew’s eyes.

“You never said yes.”

“Sneaky. Sneaky, sneaky,” Andrew says, but it is not sneaky at all. It is true, and it is _Neil_.

Neil knows this, which is probably why he ignores Andrew and waits in the doorway to the bedroom. He stands there, and all Andrew can hear is the song from the club still beating in his ears, beating on his chest, thumping him like a drum, skin pulled too tight around wooden bones.

“Go in.” The words fall, a beat, _one-two_. Neil follows the rhythm like he knows it back and forth; like it’s some dance Nicky taught him and not a complicated shuffle that is _only_ Andrew, that even Andrew doesn’t know.

The tension and fury are his, and he doesn’t even know how to navigate them ( _his_ ).

So how the hell does Neil know?

Neil leaves the door open and stands on the other side of the bed. Gives Andrew room to escape, pulling his destroyed shirt off with absent fingers. He strips without much care for what he’s doing. Neil doesn’t put on a show, only slides his jeans off and leaves them in a black puddle on the floor. This is routine, for him.

“What happened to being shy? Hiding in the showers?”

Neil casts an unimpressed glance over his shoulder. “You told me to stop running.”

Again. _Again,_ Andrew thinks; again, with the unnecessarily sharp comments. The memory. All these words Neil say that amount to _I’m listening._

_I always am._

“Stop.”

Just like that. Just like that, it all comes down at once and Neil stops.

Andrew closes his eyes. _I could find you in the dark. I could find you blind. I could find you…_

The thoughts come in a rhythm. Ebb and flow, here and there, like a fading synthesizer echoing under a song that sounds like vertigo. Andrew could breathe in the bass of this moment, and it would fill his lungs with the sound of his heart.

Neil’s voice inches into the world, a distant note muffled by distortion. “Andrew. Stay?”

He is not asking if Andrew will stay. Neil is asking if he should, as if this mistake is his, and not some new obstacle that Andrew has thrown up ( _his_ ) almost as violently as his knives.

Maybe before, Andrew would have said _go_. He certainly wouldn’t have allowed this to stretch so far. Go on so long.

_Months._

They have been together for months.

He is supposed to answer, but he can’t. His perfect fucking memory chooses this moment to give him an exact number; a timeline for _them._ For this. For being—

— _his_ —

—Andrew turns from the room. He only knows that the memory clings to him, thick in his blood, and he requires a change. He does not register his hand on the doorknob or his feet taking him out the front door.

It’s cold. Andrew blinks and finds his eyelashes heavy. The world is swimming, but not in the alcohol and music of the club. He is somewhere far away; he is a ship unmoored. He is distant from land and nothing can reach him.

He sees Neil. Sudden, like the ghost that he is. An apparition of blue eyes and reddish hair, lashes dark with water. It is raining, Andrew realizes, and Neil is only wearing a dark hoodie over his underwear. He is still almost entirely naked.

That is amusing, for some reason.

“Andrew,” Neil whispers. He is just as unaffected by the rain as he is by pain. By kidnapping. By any number of absurd and horrifying things. “Yes or no?”

Andrew is still fighting. He is still fighting feelings that roil beneath the surface like drums behind an echoing voice and dreamy track; he is pretending that they are the same brand of hallucination he once believed Neil was ( _his_ ).

Andrew is fucking exhausted. “Yes.”

He expects. He doesn’t mean to and doesn’t even realize it; not until Neil leans in and is somehow off mark, his lips a faint brush against Andrew’s cheek. It is so absurdly chaste and warm that Andrew can’t help the huff that leaves him.

Neil doesn’t bat an eye. He moves to the other cheek; his lips are warmer, now. Strange. As if Andrew is warm enough to heat him.

There is something odd in allowing himself to accept this. Andrew is not fighting it; he is too tired to fight it. Too exhausted to consider fighting. He spent the last goddamn year fighting more than he’d ever expected to, in ways he didn’t plan to.

Fighting Neil is not something he wants to do. Somehow, standing in the rain, Andrew can understand himself enough to know this.

Neil kisses his eyes shut. Moves to Andrew’s nose, as if this is some game he is playing. Except Neil doesn’t do games unless it’s Exy, and he is so serious when Andrew opens his eyes again that Andrew half expects Neil to confess something terrible.

He hates that he anticipates a negative from Neil.

“Inside?” It is a question that Neil should not have to ask, and Andrew knows with absolute certainty that Neil would stay out in the rain as long as Andrew did. He would be the kind of idiot to watch him, instead of going the hell inside to make sure that at least one of them doesn’t get sick.

Maybe the rain did it. Maybe the beat still at the back of Andrew’s mind, less insistent and lazier, a thrumming rhythm that instead of pulling at his teeth tells him that he is alive. “Yes.”

Andrew takes Neil’s wrist. These small touches are acceptable, now—but still he knows Neil will ask now. Especially now.

Their shoes are wet on the floor. Andrew toes his off haphazardly; ignores the puddle they leave behind and wanders toward the bedroom.

It’s a strange feeling, reentering. It should not make a difference, soaking wet with the ghost of Neil’s lips on his face, but it does. Andrew can almost feel his body unraveling with each step, a little tension lost as the seconds pass.

Andrew turns when he reaches the bed. Neil hovers, nearby but distant. Careful. Andrew almost wants to apologize, but—

—the apology wouldn’t be right and it’s not his fault, anyway. This is just one more thing about him and one more thing that Neil knows ( _his_ ).

“You’re wet.” Andrew’s hand skates over the top of Neil’s head. The curls there are loose with water, tangled from dancing and rain.

Neil pushes into Andrew’s touch. Gently, as if not to startle him. Like he thinks he is more than a handful; too much for Andrew to hold.

Sometimes, Neil almost feels like it. This is not one of those times.

The edges of Neil’s mouth curve upward, soft. “Am I?”

Andrew huffs. It is not funny. Not the right time—

—but the thudding in his chest disagrees. The new ease to his movements says _yes_ , says _this is good_. Andrew blinks slowly, feels as if he is capturing the moment in a snapshot. His eyes shutter and the flash is Neil’s eyes, a rattling cymbal that crashes like the shudder that runs down Neil’s spine. Andrew can feel it under his palm where it rests on the back of Neil’s neck.

“You need to warm up.” Andrew’s fingers curl at the edge of Neil’s hoodie. It is only damp at the bottom, but the shoulders are dark with water. It is probably starting to feel cold.

Andrew is going to ask, but Neil nods dazedly and starts to pull at the jacket. The rosy color on his cheeks is darker than Andrew remembers, but it might be the warmth of the house. Or it might be Andrew ( _his_ ).

There is nothing rushed about this. Neil takes what he has off—slowly, always with a pause; he lets Andrew dictate the pace. His clothes thump softly onto the floor and each drop is accompanied by a pulsing sound in Andrew’s head. A vague reminder of dancing and alcohol and _Neil_ ( _his_ ).

He thinks of saying something. Finds nothing immediate in his mind and instead concentrates on Neil. On sliding his hands over the soft curves of Neil’s arms. Andrew finds the freckles there, always almost-invisible until you look closely.

Andrew has looked closely.

Neil is suddenly undressed. Suddenly bare, though his posture shows no change. He is still upright; still relaxed. At ease.

This makes no sense. Neil makes no sense.

Neil is naked before someone entirely clothed. Every inch of him has always been a warning against trust—a walking, breathing reminder not to rely on anyone. A reminder to never be seen. A reminder never to be remembered.

Except Neil is standing before someone with a perfect memory, and he is letting himself be seen. Letting himself be remembered.

As if anyone could ever forget him.

Andrew does not make a decision to undress. Not in words, at least. He does allow it; does acknowledge his fingers on his jacket and the thought that _I am taking everything off, now._ But there is no realization. No concrete expectation of any outcome.

Neil’s hands raise, but they don’t touch Andrew. They stop short of him and wait.

“You don’t have to,” he says.

“I know,” Andrew says. He sheds his jacket and looks—really looks at Neil, with his red hair drying and fluffy from the humidity. Andrew finds the freckles on Neil’s cheeks, stubbornly refusing the jagged scars on his face just like Neil does.

Andrew decides. Asks, “Help?”

It’s not help he is asking for. Not really.

“Yes.”

An endless shiver. Andrew feels like an earthquake; feels like a glass being struck. He vibrates when Neil touches him, and some endless note rings in his ears.

Andrew can admit that he has always liked Neil’s hands. He has always liked how warm they are, because Neil is a furnace. He has always liked the faint calluses that scratch against Andrew’s skin, because they remind him what kind of person is touching him. What kind of person is touching him _carefully._

“Okay?” Neil pauses, his hands lingering at Andrew’s jeans. His fingertips are pressed to skin, heavy enough to be significant and light enough to be cautious.

This should not be okay, probably. Maybe. Andrew has stopped trying to categorize, when it comes to Neil. “Yes,” he answers. “Keep going.”

It’s not as if they haven’t been undressed together. Specifically together, just the two of them. Except it was always in passing—in a shared shower, or in black moments after panic attacks in a bedroom.

This is different. At least for Andrew.

They are both here. Both _present_. Andrew is allowing Neil to touch him. Undress him. Neil’s hands are careful and slow, and he stops after every discarded article of clothing, to let Andrew say _no_ or _wait_ or a hundred other things.

Andrew remembers that no one has undressed him. Not like this. Not so carefully, and not with this patience. This lack of expectations. Neil doesn’t want anything except maybe to understand—

—to _know_ Andrew. To really know him, which is why Andrew has evaded Neil for so long. He has dealt with looking and remembering.

It is another thing for someone to look at and remember him.

Neil waits. All that’s left is underwear, and he pulls his hands back. Says again, “You don’t have to.”

“I know.” He is not drunk, but he sways still; feels Neil’s nose bump against his. They have somehow ended up breathing each other’s air. Trading the warmth and wetness, and perhaps something else that is going unsaid.

Andrew does not want to wait any longer. There is a knot below his stomach—further still—and he wants to _let go_. His voice is nothing but a shallow whisper when he says, “You can. Would you?”

Neil swallows. Andrew can trace it as it moves along his throat; his eyes rove the assortment of wayward freckles. The faintest scars. Neil’s lips part and he licks them, tongue quick. “Yes.”

Andrew shakes all the way down to his soul. He is rubble and dust. A blank foundation. He is reduced to something new, and Neil’s hands slide the last layer off just as delicately as they did the first.

The moonlight is coming through the window in solid stripes. Bars that illuminate pieces of Neil—his high cheekbones, his shoulders, parts of his chest. Neil blinks and his eyes are starlight. Andrew wants to reach out and cover them. Cover everything, only so he can take his hands away and know for certain.

Andrew finds the only thing he will always know—the only thing he will always understand is _yes._ He curls his hand around the back of Neil’s neck.

He admits, despite himself, “This could be a dream.”

_This could end as badly as it began._

“No,” Neil says. His eyes seem to trace an invisible path across Andrew’s face. He must find whatever landmark he is looking for—whatever destination he seems to see, when he looks at what Andrew practiced as an empty expression. “This is real. I feel you.”

Feeling. It wasn’t long ago someone said he didn’t have that.

 _I want to feel him._ It is why Andrew made the decision in the first place. Why he even asked Neil to undress him.

Why he’s standing here naked, seeing and being seen.

He has to ask. Knows he is going to ask, as much as he tells himself he doesn’t want to. That he shouldn’t.

Andrew’s hand slides from Neil’s neck. Not away, but sideways—closer to his face. Andrew’s other hand finds Neil’s right shoulder. “Would you—”

He can’t. Not entirely. Andrew stumbles five feet from the end, and he is so tempted to stop there. To resign what is a ridiculous venture.

Except Neil’s eyes flicker and he knows. He _knows._ “Can I hold you?”

It is easier to answer, somehow. “Yes.”

Andrew answers, but he is the one pulling Neil closer. Letting Neil’s head rest against his shoulder. Andrew is the one that brought them into this room, and he is the one that asked for Neil’s hands.

Even when he doesn’t ask, he does, and Neil repeats the question. Says it out loud, in words, for Andrew to confirm. To answer.

Andrew knows when the questions and answers began, but he is not quite as certain when they slowed to a trickle. When digging became discovery. No more asking what Neil had experienced, but instead little whispers and stories at two in the morning. Neil taking a bite of Andrew’s sandwich and admitting he’d never tried bean sprouts before.

Questions and answers.

“I am yours.” Neil gives this answer; gives himself. It is selfish and uncaring and somehow—

—somehow, it is true.

Andrew thinks about saying _you assume too much._ He thinks about reminding Neil that he needs a question to have an answer, and that it can only be one and one. He thinks of these things, and he throws them all away.

He wants Neil. He does; he _wants_ him, and he does not think he can say that these feelings are his, but Neil has done that for him ( _his_ ).

_His._

Neil waits. There is anticipation in the curves of his arms and the bend of his knee. Preparation for the worst in the way Neil’s hands are uncurled and loose, as if he is opening himself to being pushed away. Proving he is no threat.

“Unfair,” Andrew says. He catches the moment of fear in Neil’s face and almost hates himself for putting it there ( _his_ ). Except he means it, because there is no other way to explain what he feels. No other way to open himself up, because he is still raw and uncertain and guarded.

Andrew knows life is not fair. He knows this is unfair— _they_ are unfair; they are wildly different and horrifically cracked, like a scratched disc that shouldn’t play properly. One that should skip and stutter and jam. Only, they don’t. They somehow, miraculously blend, even when the percussive trauma of their past clashes with the softer key of their present.

Andrew offers what he has and for once, it does not feel like vulnerability. “If you are mine, then I am yours.”

Neil is not breathing. He is _there,_ and he _exists_ , but he is suspended. Frozen in time for Andrew, a portrait of flushed cheeks and lips and hooded blue eyes. He only moves a beat later, his hands descending on Andrew’s cheekbones, fingertips pressed in a fan over the skin. “Yours,” he whispers, a hushed agreement. He tastes like promises.

_Yours._

**Author's Note:**

> I had such a fantastic time doing this collaboration with BloodyDamnit. All the art for this event was incredible, and she's a fantastic creator in the fandom. Make sure to check her out on tumblr and follow her for more amazing things!


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